Glad to see it. I hope he can at least find some liability insurance on his old boat, since a boat like that can do some serious damage.

I tried to get to my boat yesterday and couldn't. We normally have 6' tidal swings, but it was up to 8', and was even higher than NOAA's 7' spring tide prediction. I was wondering if someone was emptying a big reservoir upriver, since there had been no recent rainfall or winds pushing the water in.

When I parked my car the water was into the parking lot about 18" past the end of the dock. I quickly changed my shoes and went back to the dock expecting to hop the 18" but it had moved to about 6' from the dock. It was still about 30 minutes to high tide, so I gave up and left because I did not want to wait over an hour for it to recede.

I applaud the owner's patience, and ingenuity but as John quoted from the original article he said #1- insurance is hard to get for a wooden boat, and then later said #2 that he couldn't afford insurance.

Maybe you can't insure the boat, but he should be able to purchase liability insurance. If no one is willing to issue him any kind of insurance, then he should take greater precautions than normal to insure that his boat doesn't blow down on anyone else's property. This is sort of a case of someone biting off more than they can chew.

I'm not trying to crap on the guy, I'm glad for him. I just hope that he takes greater care in the future to secure the boat against adverse weather.

The other thought that keeps rattling around in my brain is: "Who the hell keeps a pleasure sailboat that draws 8 friggin' feet in the Chesapeake Bay???" That thing belongs in Puget Sound.

Glad to see it. I hope he can at least find some liability insurance on his old boat, since a boat like that can do some serious damage.

I tried to get to my boat yesterday and couldn't. We normally have 6' tidal swings, but it was up to 8', and was even higher than NOAA's 7' spring tide prediction. I was wondering if someone was emptying a big reservoir upriver, since there had been no recent rainfall or winds pushing the water in.

When I parked my car the water was into the parking lot about 18" past the end of the dock. I quickly changed my shoes and went back to the dock expecting to hop the 18" but it had moved to about 6' from the dock. It was still about 30 minutes to high tide, so I gave up and left because I did not want to wait over an hour for it to recede.

FYI, here's how it looked in Annapolis:

Noaa is very bad at predicting tides on the chesapeake. I lived on the bay and in about 1995 Noaa predicted 3 foot above msl and a hurricane surge caused an 8 foot above msl tide. Sometimes Conowingo Dam will release a lot of water (during heavy rains in PA) and the water will cause the bay to rise and when topped with winds and spring/fall tides it can amount to many times the normal tide. The release from Conowingo a few days ago might have helped the water level rise: USGS Real-Time Water Data for USGS 01578310 SUSQUEHANNA RIVER AT CONOWINGO, MD

Maybe you can't insure the boat, but he should be able to purchase liability insurance. If no one is willing to issue him any kind of insurance, then he should take greater precautions than normal to insure that his boat doesn't blow down on anyone else's property. This is sort of a case of someone biting off more than they can chew.

I am afraid that the uninsured boaters are much more common than we realized, especially there is no requirement by the state. I wonder if there is uninsured boater insurance just like in the automobile side.

In today's economy, the first thing many boat owners will do is to drop their boat expense. This particular true when the owner has no net worth at all, he is not risking much when he is being sued. Suck to be the other boaters

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